This new three-episode PBS series takes place in 1952, and it is based on women who worked in Bletchley Park, a grand estate in the Buckinghamshire, England, which housed Great Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School during World War II. At its peak, 6769 women were employed at Bletchley Park and its outstations, as opposed to 2225 men. However, few of the women were ‘codebreakers,’ per se. Whereas the men were usually crossword experts, linguists, chess champions, polyglots or mathematicians recruited from England’s top universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, the women came via personal references, and worked primarily in the areas of operations and interception, and of course clerical administration. Is it any wonder the men were nicknamed “boffins” (a term meaning eggheads) and the women were known as “debs” (for debutantes)?

The television series picks up seven years after the war. Unlike their male counterparts, who were promoted into other positions within military intelligence, such as the Foriegn Office, MI6, or the diplomatic corps, the show’s four heroines — Susan, Millie, Jean and Lucy — are leading mundane lives as housewives, or are working in unskilled jobs. But by the time a serial killer has taken his twelfth victim, the women have reacquainted, and have banded together in order to use the skills they honed at Bletchley Park to catch the killer.

We’ve come a long way, ladies.

I think you’ll enjoy the trailer, below. If so, catch the episodes on demand, or online, at PBS.org.

FYI: Ken Jennings, the guy who was that big celebrity winner on Jeopardy, interviewed my husband for his book, BRAINIC, about trivia professionals (at the time, The Hub was writing cardware for trivia games, like Trivail Pursuit, and tons of others). When we got the book, the one thing that stood out was some fact Martin hit him about lobsters (???) and that Ken wrote he had “watery blue eyes.” HAHA! That’s called “allergy season.” Too funny.

Women–largley unsung heros. Our job is to sing our fellow sisters’s praises. Somehow I ran across some books about the cypher school–perhaps regarding the breaking of the Enigma Code–just love that era! I’ll find the series, for sure!

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Bio:

Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly three dozen romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband, five children, and assorted pets.